


The Way This Ends

by roromir



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Breakup, Canon Compliant, Crying, Divorce, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Revelations, Season/Series 08, but curtis isn't mean, hard discussions, pre-sheith, previously seen on twitter, this is not a happy curtashi relationship story, threadfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:08:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25715560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roromir/pseuds/roromir
Summary: Shiro slips up. Curtis gives him an out, and Shiro - Shiro thinks he might take it.
Relationships: Curtis/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	The Way This Ends

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I realize Curtis is a very divisive character and I ask that you accept this with the same good intentions with which I am offering it. If you're looking for curtashi happily ever after, it isn't here. 
> 
> This may continue some day, but this is where I leave it, for now. 
> 
> Kind comments are always appreciated.

Keith isn’t even in the solar system the first time Shiro says his name during sex. Even if Shiro could play off saying “Keith!” instead of Curtis, he’s too honest to do it.  
Curtis forgives him long before he forgives himself.  
Shiro deals with it how he usually deals with things, which is by not talking about it.  
He goes to work, and Curtis goes to work, and Shiro hopes that’ll be the end of it.  
But then Curtis comes home with a kind, sad smile and sits down on the couch next to him.  
“You know we have to talk about this,” Curtis says with far more kindness than Shiro deserves.   
Shiro sighs, soul-deep.  
“Do we, though?”  
“If we’re going to get past it. You do want that, right?”  
Shiro twists his wedding band around his finger. He wonders if Curtis is really giving him an out this easily.  
“How do I even fix this, Curt?”   
Curtis smooths Shiro’s hair over his forehead and out of his eyes. He’s always doing that.  
“Are you still in love with him?”  
Shiro sputters. “What do you mean, still?”  
Curtis just looks at him steadily.  
“I know you loved him once, Takashi. I might be a little dumb, but I’m not that dumb.”  
Shiro scrubs a hand over his face. He’s the fucking worst. He tries to do what seems best and hurts everyone.  
Shiro lets out a noise like a spoon caught in the garbage disposal.  
“I love you. I married you,” he replies after a moment.  
Curtis smiles and hums.  
“So you don’t love Keith, whose name you said while I was balls deep in you yesterday.”  
Shiro actually laughs, though it is not a happy sound by any means.  
“What could I possibly say, Curt, to make this better? ‘No, I don’t love him, I just imagined him fucking me last night for something to do?’”  
To his disgust, Shiro feels tears building in his eyes.  
He doesn’t deserve to cry over this, he’s an asshole.  
He scrubs his hands over his eyes roughly.  
He chokes on a sob before he grits out the truth.  
“I love you, but I’ve loved him for years. Too.”  
Curtis hands him a tissue. His eyes aren’t dry, either, but somehow he doesn’t look angry.  
“Why aren’t you furious with me?” Shiro demands. “I hate myself right now for hurting you.”  
Curt tugs him into a hug.  
“I’ve been waiting for you to realize you’re in love with him.”  
“Why?” Shiro croaks out. “Why would you do that to yourself?”  
Curtis sniffles from somewhere around his neck.  
“Maybe ‘dreading’ is a better word,” he admits. “But I love you, and I hoped that would be enough.”  
“Do one thing for me, Takashi,” he murmurs. “Think about what would really make you happy. Is it being here, with me? Or do you want to be with him? Out there?”  
Shiro’s face is quickly becoming a mess of snot and tears.  
He tries to think about what he really wants.  
All Shiro wanted when he was sick was to be among the stars, to be allowed to be as good as anyone else.  
And then all he wanted was to live. When the Galra empire forced him to fight, to be an experiment for Haggar, took his arm without even so much as a bullet to bite.  
When Ulaz helped him escape and Shiro made it back to earth, and he woke up to see Keith’s wide eyes staring back at him, Shiro thought maybe he really had died.  
Keith has saved him more times than he can even count, from the garrison and the Galra and death itself.  
And what did Shiro do to repay him? He married someone else.  
If Shiro had taken the time to be honest with himself in the whirlwind of the end of the war, he would have known Keith loved him, if not because he said as much, by the way Keith looked at him.  
But it all seemed like too much, with the war and the expectations on him, and at the time, a quieter life on earth, with Curtis, seemed like what Shiro wanted, had been what he wanted at the time.  
But things have changed without Shiro allowing himself to notice.  
He feels that pull again, and he doesn’t actually know if it’s coming more from his wanderlust or from Keith.  
Shiro pulls back, mops his face and blows his nose and looks his husband in his face. He at least deserves that much.  
“I — I love him. And the stars.”  
Curtis wipes a tear from his own face, and somehow he smiles.  
“Then get out there. And go get him.”  
Shiro clenches his teeth against another wave of tears.  
“I don’t deserve either of you,” he whispers.  
“Oh, bullshit,” Curtis replies. “You have a lot of work to do, though.”


End file.
